"And she rejoiced in her blood and flesh, in the rough pine bark she felt next to her skin, in the beat of her heart and the life of all her senses, and in the hunger she was feeling now, and in the presence of her sweet-voiced bluethroat daemon, and in the earth below her and the lives of every creature, plant and animal both; and she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her."-Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials

Ruta Skadi, the Queen of the Latvian witches. Relatively speaking, she plays a minor part in the His Dark Materials trilogy, but she's one of my favorite characters. I love the way the witches are written, they're just so connected to the Universe, but so earthly.

I have been trying to create this piece for almost a year. I went through endless compositional sketches and had a hard time getting through this when something did finally work.